The One Woman Screwing Up North Dakota’s Plan to End AbortionMarch 30, 2013 3:36 AMSubscribe

As the only abortion-performing clinic in North Dakota, Red River is the main target [of North Dakota anti-choice legislative efforts]. An average of 25 abortions take place here each Wednesday. That’s why [Tammi] Kromenaker has found herself the focal point of the national debate this week, the latest target amongst a host of state-by-state attempts to do away with a woman’s right to choose.posted by barnacles (63 comments total)
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The article does not mention that the Red River Valley Women's Clinic is literally four blocks from the border with Minnesota, which is solidly pro life. There is a Planned Parenthood a couple of miles away on that side of the border. While I believe every state should have good women's health care, this might not be the best hill to die on.posted by miyabo at 4:05 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Abortion is legal in America. Full-stop.

Nobody should have to cross state lines for the health care they require. Full-stop.

First of all, given the murders of doctors who perform abortion and clinic workers over the past few decades, maybe "this might not be the best hill to die on" is not the best way to express your opinion.

Secondly, today it's North Dakota. Tomorrow it's Georgia. Then it's Alabama. In how many states is it okay to violate women's Constitutional rights before we are allowed to complain?posted by hydropsyche at 4:08 AM on March 30, 2013 [93 favorites]

The article does not mention that the Red River Valley Women's Clinic is literally four blocks from the border with Minnesota, which is solidly pro life. There is a Planned Parenthood a couple of miles away on that side of the border. While I believe every state should have good women's health care, this might not be the best hill to die on.
posted by miyabo at 4:05 AM on March 30

Sanford’s spokesman said the hospital has bylaws that apply equally to any physician requesting privileges, though the hospital takes no position on abortion and does not allow them to be performed there.

The article does not mention that the Red River Valley Women's Clinic is literally four blocks from the border with Minnesota, which is solidly pro life. There is a Planned Parenthood a couple of miles away on that side of the border. While I believe every state should have good women's health care, this might not be the best hill to die on.

I see; so if they were forcing churches or mosques to close through intentionally onerous laws, then the fact that a church or mosque was open across state lines would somehow lessen the problem?posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 5:11 AM on March 30, 2013 [10 favorites]

The article does not mention that the Red River Valley Women's Clinic is literally four blocks from the border with Minnesota, which is solidly pro life. There is a Planned Parenthood a couple of miles away on that side of the border.

None of which does any good for the woman two blocks from Kronneker's clinic who's been raped and made pregnant through that rape, and does not own a car.posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:29 AM on March 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

[Possible alt link for people having trouble connecting. Also, guys, try to have a decent conversation here, and don't just pile on one comment/commenter. If you want to be able to continue to discuss touchy issues, you need to make an effort.]posted by taz at 5:36 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

A quote from North Dakota's governor in a linked article from the post just royally pisses me off:

"These are bills that have passed the legislature. This is what they want to do," [Governor Jack] Dalrymple said in Dickinson, North Dakota. "They have a legislative right to find out if these laws can stand."

No, they don't. They have an obligation to "support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of North Dakota." (ND Oath of Office) The legislative branch is not a court, last I checked, and it's not responsible for interpreting the law. Acknowledging in advance that the law you just passed is unconstitutional should be grounds for getting an immediate declarative judgment in the local Federal District Court. (Yes, I recognize the hypocrisy in that statement versus the immediate prior statement. I'm just annoyed.)posted by fireoyster at 5:40 AM on March 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

Now that they’ve been denied a Romney presidency where Supreme Court appointments would be carried out under a strict anti-choice litmus test, abortion-rights foes have clearly decided to initiate a challenge that will test the commitment to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey of the existing Court—and particularly its erratic “swing vote,” Justice Kennedy, who opened the door to new abortion restrictions in his bizarre opinion in a 2007 decision upholding a federal ban on so-called “partial-birth-abortion.”

When North Dakota’s Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed that batch of radical bills on abortion yesterday, he might as well have been holding up a big sign reading: “Hey, Anthony Kennedy! These bills are for you!” So I wouldn’t be surprised if abortion is the big issue in oral arguments before the Supremes next year or the year after that.

I've always been willing to accept that other people have their own opinions about abortion, and many of those opinions are formed by their religious viewpoints. Fine, that's certainly valid. What is most definately not acceptable or valid is forcing me (or anyone else!) to live by your religious values.

I'm of the "my body/my choice" school of thought: if you don't want an abortion, then don't have one, but get your damn nose out of my life.

And the day these anti-abortion groups (no, not 'pro-life': they've murdered way too many people to be able to claim that title) step up to fully and completely pay to raise ALL of those children, all the way from conception through college/grad school, is the day I'll begin to believe that their cause is about more than forcing the rest of the world to live by their religious beliefs.posted by easily confused at 5:52 AM on March 30, 2013 [36 favorites]

Acknowledging in advance that the law you just passed is unconstitutional should be grounds for getting an immediate declarative judgment in the local Federal District Court.

Have there been legal repercussions for tying up the courts in this way? Can the federal government hold ND legislators and the governor 'in contempt' or something of that nature? I keep thinking of consequences from frivolous litigation, etc.posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:52 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

This isn't about banning abortion in North Dakota (or not just about that). It's about getting an abortion case to the supreme court in hopes in overturning Roe v. Wade. Not sure that could be considered "frivolous"; it's what the courts are for, to work through legislation this way. Sad the women of North Dakota have to suffer the consequences in the meantime.posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:02 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I probably have this wrong, so feel free to correct me, but did Roe v. Wade actually settle the issue, or just toss it back to the state legislatures to deal with? The impression I‘ve had all these years is the latter; basically, abortions are a state issue, not a federal one according to Roe.

And is anyone else absolutely aghast at how smarmy these laws are? They‘re not expressly banning abortion, just placing ludicrous restrictions on it that deny access just as effectively as an outright ban would. Like Daffy Duck selling insurance to Porky Pig...posted by Jughead at 6:08 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's about getting an abortion case to the supreme court in hopes in overturning Roe v. Wade

Well, only tangentially. Anti-abortion groups know they can't bring a direct challenge to Roe to the high court. Such a direct challenge (even if they had standing, which they probably do not) probably wouldn't win the day. What these state-by-state laws are about is seeing how far the court will allow states to go in limiting and trimming-away at Roe, ultimately, they hope, to the point of rendering Roe an empty shell of a ruling. A law that says abortion is legal, but so restricted as to make abortion de-facto unavailable. And, this court has been signaling for a long time that it is highly amenable to this scheme.posted by Thorzdad at 6:17 AM on March 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

Democracy LOL.

Sigh. I really hate that these types of debates are still happening in 2013.posted by Fizz at 6:59 AM on March 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

easily confused: "I've always been willing to accept that other people have their own opinions about abortion, and many of those opinions are formed by their religious viewpoints. Fine, that's certainly valid."

The problem is that those same religious viewpoints require--according to common interpretations of them--that everyone be brought into lockstep. If $badthing = wrong and $thing = $badthing, then $thing = wrong and must be stopped. It doesn't matter who is doing the thing, that thing must be crushed everywhere. There is no wiggle room for "oh, they don't happen to believe the same beliefs I have" because that is irrelevant; those beliefs are right and must be imposed everywhere for the grace and good of everyone.

Of course, the foregoing assumes otherwise good intentions and not malice. There's a good chunk of malice, too. "Somebody is doing something I don't like and it doesn't matter why I don't like it." That's the sentiment you are arguing against and that sentiment is just as hard to overcome ("I'm in power and screw you, I'll do what I want") as true believers.posted by fireoyster at 7:11 AM on March 30, 2013 [6 favorites]

What these state-by-state laws are about is seeing how far the court will allow states to go in limiting and trimming-away at Roe

That's basically right. It is, at root, a pretty common legal tactic. You've heard the saying, "If the law is on your side, argue the law. If the facts are on your side, argue the facts." What that means is, if existing law directly contradicts your position, then find a way to differentiate your case from that law. It's what lawyers do.

It's used by people who would like to see Roe disappear. "Oh, abortion can't be outlawed? But we're just addressing one type of abortion..." It's used by people who would like to see the Second Amendment disappear. "Oh, guns can't be outlawed? But we're just addressing one type of gun..." It's not necessarily an unethical tactic on its face. It's how our legal system works.

Having said that...

Acknowledging in advance that the law you just passed is unconstitutional should be grounds for getting an immediate declarative judgment in the local Federal District Court.

I completely agree with this. Legislators who pass laws that obviously will not withstand scrutiny are behaving irresponsibly, and in some cases violating their oaths of office. They are grandstanding. It's actually a pretty good reason to sign a citizens' petition for impeachment.posted by cribcage at 7:24 AM on March 30, 2013 [10 favorites]

I find it oddly confusing that the same people so intent on farcical laws governing abortion, sex, etc., are the same who also run around screaming about the imminent coming of Sharia law.posted by petrilli at 7:29 AM on March 30, 2013 [17 favorites]

I find it oddly confusing that the same people so intent on farcical laws governing abortion, sex, etc., are the same who also run around screaming about the imminent coming of Sharia law.

The problem is that those same religious viewpoints require--according to common interpretations of them--that everyone be brought into lockstep. If $badthing = wrong and $thing = $badthing, then $thing = wrong and must be stopped. It doesn't matter who is doing the thing, that thing must be crushed everywhere.

That's the reason for anti-LGBT laws (or at least, the fight against laws that protect the unrelated rights of LGBT people), but the anti-abortion crowd (for the most part) believes that abortion is not just a $badthing because the Bible says so. They genuinely believe that they are protecting living things by restricting abortion. They really do think that there are women out there who simply don't care that the clump of cells inside them might some day be a functional human being; that "abortion as birth control" is an actual thing that some women do.

Yes, there are some who just want to punish people who have sex, or keep women under their collective thumbs. But the vast majority of the movement to restrict abortion rights or availability thinks that they're protecting the unborn. You do them and the effort to convince them otherwise a disservice by lumping them in with the Christian-sharia types.posted by Etrigan at 7:47 AM on March 30, 2013 [9 favorites]

[A few comments removed. Again, if we want to have threads on contentious topics, let's avoid heated overgeneralizations about the motives of everyone in a certain group. Maybe we can focus on the specific link and not on general pronouncements about the broader topic?]posted by LobsterMitten at 8:38 AM on March 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

[No really, let's stick to discussing this actual link, not the general topic of abortion.]posted by LobsterMitten at 9:18 AM on March 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

That North Dakota is cutting funding for food programs for low-income women and children, but setting aside money to defend this legislation from legal challenge pretty much sums up the absurdity of the situation. What you are doing speaks so loudly I can't actually hear what you are saying.posted by ambrosia at 9:28 AM on March 30, 2013 [22 favorites]

The interview linked in this article really infuriates me. I want to punch that smug jerk for "starting a conversation" by comparing abortion access to gun control laws. What kind of conversation is he hoping to start? I've puzzled over this comparison and honestly have no idea what his point could possibly be, except that he's trying to "out" his guest as one of those god-hating lib'rals. This is America's problem in a nutshell – moronic "journalists" who are more interested in provoking anger and bipartisan name-calling than reporting on the facts. Kromenaker handled herself incredibly well and came across as what she is, a sane medical professional who has gotten stuck in the cross-hairs of an insane legislature. Good on her.posted by deathpanels at 9:36 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Found donation links if anyone wants to help.

To donate to the legislative assistance fund (and I assume general clinic operations) you can follow the Paypal instructions here.

To donate to the fund they have to help low-income women pay for expenses you can donate here through Network for Good.posted by schroedinger at 9:38 AM on March 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

That North Dakota is cutting funding for food programs for low-income women and children

It also notes some states restrictions, such as prohibiting telemedicine. I hadn't considered that before. Do they prohibit all telemedicine, or did they single out the things they want to make difficult?posted by RobotHero at 9:59 AM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cite?

From the article:

Adding insult to that injury, for Will, is the governor’s acknowledgment, when he signed the bills Tuesday, that there’d be a court challenge and that the state would need to set aside money to fight. This, in light of cuts in funding for programs such as Women Infants and Children’s, that provide food to the underprivileged children,

WIC, like most federal assistance programs, requires a good deal of cooperation and administration from states.posted by zombieflanders at 10:34 AM on March 30, 2013

WIC is a federal program primarily funded by federal grants to the states but many states extend the program with their own money.posted by jedicus at 10:38 AM on March 30, 2013

I probably have this wrong, so feel free to correct me, but did Roe v. Wade actually settle the issue, or just toss it back to the state legislatures to deal with? The impression I‘ve had all these years is the latter; basically, abortions are a state issue, not a federal one according to Roe.

The decision establishes that women's ninth (privacy) and fourteenth (due process) amendment rights are infringed when states limit abortion access in the first trimester by passing criminal laws.

So my understanding is that for years states have skirted that line, not by criminalizing procedures but by regulating them. In the interactive map linked from the article, you can see that many states require a licensed physician to provide abortions, because there was wiggle room left for that in the Supreme Court decision, meaning that a qualified nurse practitioner cannot perform abortions in many states. Mandatory twenty-four hour waiting periods and laws requiring that women be shown ultrasound images are regulatory, rather than criminal. But if you pass enough of these laws that the only clinic in your state is on the verge of closing, like Mississippi did, you tempt a due process banhammer. Using fetal heartbeat as a benchmark instead of using viability is another way to bait the judiciary branch.

All of this, and absolutely the abortion bans are the worst of it. Red River Valley Women's Clinic is of course the only abortion clinic in the state and this was aimed squarely at them. So why now? There's an article that the Associated Press put together that argues that the anti-abortion caucus that used to control the legislature fell apart last year, but I don't think that's it.

I've heard lots of credible rumors (that Gov Dalrymple seems to back up) that the reason abortion foes went after North Dakota was because the state's the only one in the nation with sufficient money to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. In other words, North Dakota was targeted precisely because it is a lightly populated, highly red state with a lot of oil money.

“I’m embarrassed for my state,” the woman said. “There are people all over the country, all over the world now, asking what is wrong with these people in North Dakota?” Indeed.

All I have to say is: that's it, I'm done, I'm not staying in a state I can't get an abortion in. I've got a departure date and it's before those laws kick in.posted by librarylis at 1:06 PM on March 30, 2013 [21 favorites]

Leave now. I left a few years ago. Best decision I ever made.posted by fake at 2:03 PM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hills are hard to climb. We build structures on the summits of hills to restrict access. Few people are privileged enough to visit them.

"Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The rough roads will be made smooth and easy." That's the goal, and Kromenaker is doing heroic work to make it a reality.posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:42 PM on March 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I probably have this wrong, so feel free to correct me, but did Roe v. Wade actually settle the issue, or just toss it back to the state legislatures to deal with? The impression I‘ve had all these years is the latter; basically, abortions are a state issue, not a federal one according to Roe.

Not really, no. Roe v. Wade is more of a historical review of common law around abortion followed by the summation: "Welp, there were really no significant laws about this for three hundred years, why are we suddenly declaring it illegal?"

I highly recommend reading Roe v. Wade at some point if this is a topic you care about. Although definitely read it as an historical document -- at this point the title of the case is just a symbol that gets thrown back and forth, with not much relation to the case itself.posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:59 PM on March 30, 2013

I should add a little context to the political battle that is brewing: North Dakota was for a time the home to one of the most radical political movements in US history, the Nonpartisan League. Even today, Democrats in the state are actually listed as belonging to the Democratic-Non Partisan League Party.

The NPL put in place the only state-owned bank in the nation (and the Bank of North Dakota still exists, providing the state's students loans among other important tasks) and the only state-owned grain mill in the nation (and the state grain elevator and mill still exists, farmers using it to this day).

Today, though things are obviously much different from the heyday of the NPL, the state of North Dakota provides all state employees and their families with nearly-free healthcare (recipients pay co-pays but don't pay premiums). It's the only state without voter registration. It probably also does other 'socialist' things that I can't think of off the top of my head but which keep Al Carlson up at night with heartburn.

North Dakota is a very small state where citizens are expected to be at least somewhat active in and aware of state politics (it's the only state I can imagine having a boss who was an elector, attending the state nominating convention for my political party, being on a committee with a relative of one of the state's US senators, and watching the person who had my spot on another committee before me become an elected official).

So when these three abortion bills passed through the legislature very quickly and without a great deal of prior notice, I think a lot of people were caught off-guard. It'll be interesting to see--from the outside looking in, thank you--what North Dakotans do with this controversy that's been handed to them.posted by librarylis at 6:05 PM on March 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

I only have one family member left in North Dakota - I went to Southern California for college and never looked back - but I'm glad that my mother is still there being awesome.

I wish she wasn't so isolated.posted by flaterik at 6:43 PM on March 30, 2013

Don't South Dakotans make jokes about North Dakotans? Let 'er rip.posted by telstar at 7:04 PM on March 30, 2013

I have a friend who utilized that clinic this last year. We're both livid. We're both leaving as soon as we're respectively able.

[E]nacting the nation’s most severe anti-abortion laws–and defending them against the various legal challenges they were designed to provoke–may not cost the state of North Dakota a dime.

It’s all thanks to the Liberty Counsel, a non-profit conservative-litigation group that supports challenges to Roe v. Wade. Mat Stavers, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, extended his support before North Dakota’s governor signed the legislation this week."posted by Jilder at 1:35 AM on March 31, 2013

"The article does not mention that the Red River Valley Women's Clinic is literally four blocks from the border with Minnesota, which is solidly pro life. There is a Planned Parenthood a couple of miles away on that side of the border. "

Yes, we have a Planned Parenthood in Moorhead, MN, but that facility does not offer abortion services. To actually obtain an abortion that is not performed by the Red River Women's Clinic, Planned Parenthood will refer women to St. Paul (about 3.5 hours away), Rochester, MN (even farther) or Sioux Falls, SD. While Minnesota is a blue state and there are pockets of strong liberalism, a large portion of the state is rural and very conservative and religious (lots of pro-life billboards up here). I moved here from southern Indiana last year (thinking Minnesota was some liberal bastion) and it's way beyond my comfort zone in terms of its conservatism. The Fargo-Moorhead area has a poverty problem, the jobs are few and crappy, and the pay is low. Women who are coming from the sticks of Nodak (and western Minnesota) to terminate a pregnancy at Red River Women's Clinic do not have the means to travel to St. Paul and beyond.

And this on top of the disgraceful bill that denied funding (a mere $500,000) to provide milk at school for low-income children. This is a good article that touches on some of the big problems in Nodak right now.posted by Heretic at 5:22 PM on March 31, 2013 [4 favorites]

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